Lakers fans await TV deal as regular NBA season draws near

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Kobe Bryant (#24) of the Los Angeles Lakers goes to the hoop in the 2010 NBA Finals at Staples Center. Getty Images

The Los Angeles Lakers preseason continues Wednesday. But unless you have Time Warner Cable, you can't see the NBA game at home.

Due to a cable-industry conflict, many Lakers fans in Southern California will not have a chance to watch it on TV.

Time Warner Cable is the exclusive distributor of Lakers games since they signed a deal with the team in 2011. The company has launched two regional networks - SportsNet and Spanish-language Deportes - to show the games as part of a $3 billion, 20-year deal.

But Time Warner has been unable to convince other cable companies to pay nearly $4 per subscriber to carry the networks.

“Lakers Fans can rest assured that DirecTV is very engaged in this," said Robert Mercer with DirecTV, which has one million subscribers in the Southland.

Like Dish, Cox, Verizon and other providers, DirecTV is not carrying the Time Warner networks.

“Time Warner and DirecTV are two of the largest TV providers in Los Angeles," said Mercer. "We both share a responsibility to make sure both sports fans and non-Sports fans don’t have to deal with any extraordinary increases to their families’ monthly bills.”

But so far, there is no deal for DirecTV and the other providers to carry the Time Warner networks.

And fans without Time Warner are getting anxious since the regular season starts on October 30.

The Wednesday game against the Portland Trailblazers is at the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario.